La Bombonera!

La Boca, the gritty, poor and blue collar neighborhood lies to the south of Buenos Aires and is home to the Bombonera ("the Chocolate Box'), the home stadium of the Boca Juniors, one the most popular sporting clubs in the country.

I was interested in touring the stadium as well as the museum in the stadium for several reasons. First off, CABJ has the same colors as the team I support in Turkey (although I am not sure what the origin story is for Fenerbahce's choice of colors - the myth around CABJ's color selection tells the story of the founders choosing the colors based on the colors of the flag of the next ship entering the port - which just happened to be flying a Swedish flag). Secondly, it seemed like a good jumping off point for checking out El Caminito, the, admittedly heavily touristy, area with pastel colored houses and tango performances galore.

All of my guide books contained strong warnings about walking to La Boca as well as walking off the beaten path when in La Boca. Despite the multiple warnings, after getting some instructions from my hostel I ended up walking down Defensa (known for La Feria - the all day Sunday antiques market) and rapidly hoofing it through a park and Avenida Almirante A. Brown. If you must walk to La Boca, I would advise doing it during the day - the streets off the stadium and tourist sections are actually fairly deserted and even the Argentinians I spoke to said they would be wary of travel to La Boca during the night.

The museum was pretty neat - worth a visit if you're a "futbol" fan. There was a section with tens of televisions showing highlights from prior national and international championships by the club - although for me the highlight was the stadium itself. I don't think they build stadiums like this one anymore. Completed in the 1950s, the seating is extremely close to the field, with barbed wired fences separating the fans from the players. Unfortunately they had just finished the season so I was unable to watch a game, but I can definitely imagine it being a real crackerbox of a stadium to play or watch a football match in.

The other interesting observation is the merchandising aspect of it. I'm so used to seeing heavy amounts of merchandising in the US for pro teams (and Fenerbahce is actually exceedingly good at this for a football club). CABJ had surprisingly little for sale at the stadium and a number of seemingly knock-off stores around the stadium.